Cybercrooks have found another application for ransomware, the horrible software that locks up a PC until money is handed over: it's now being used to push fake antivirus onto victims.
Reveton - a widespread piece of ransomware that infects machines, falsely accuses marks of downloading images of child abuse and demands a fine …

Re: Whats New?

2011 News Feed

Has someone pressed the wrong button at El'Reg and started posting old news from years ago?

Or is that "Security Researcher" quoted just massively out of date? For those of us dealing with these issues on home and small business PCs this is ancient news. This stuff has been going round for years. Constantly mutating to keep the Anti-Virus makers on their toes.

I wouldn't bother with that "experts" view. If he is posting this as "news", then he is not much of a researcher.

Best way of dealing with this kind of stuff? A Linux Boot Disk. Lets you get in and clear this obvious crud away.

This example is not really "ransomware" when all it is really doing is running a program at startup. Especially as that one looks so lame that even a Safe Mode boot would defeat it.

Re: 2011 News Feed

The fact that Reveton is dropping FakeAV _is_ news, you absolute cretin.

Given that you're "dealing with these issues on home and small business PCs" it's hardly a surprise you have no real understanding or comprehension of the ramifications this type of modification heralds.

Let's put this in plain terms, so you might comprehend: Reveton is a family of ransomware (notice the lack of quotes?), that _typically_ locks the shell; the fact it's no longer exclusively utilising this vector is what makes this newsworthy.

Perhaps, next time, a few less quotation marks and a bit more understanding, eh?

Good news

I am oddly cheery about this. I feel for the victims and hope it gets shut down quickly, but I think it is good for this profound vulnerability to be publicized in this way. For some time now I have been concerned that pushing illegal material on to people's machines will be used to attack enemies and quiet dissent. I believe it still will be, but the more we see stories like this, the more ammunition people will have for defense.

I expect that, once you have any indication of a real child predator, you will be able to gather convincing evidence of their guilt -- *if* they are. I do not worry that by aggressively tossing out false positives we will somehow miss really bad people.

Bradley Manning suffered through hundreds of days of torture. The disregard for the law that allowed that to happen to him could well be turned on one of us next. A truly vicious vector for such a thing would be planted criminal imagery and horrific charges, quality and provenance of evidence be damned. For people with kids (like me), violent imagery against children is a real hot-button. It tends to shut down brains and people are so hostile about it that they don't care if the accused rights are violated. They should, because the mechanism used to violate anybody's rights is aimed squarely at them and you and I.